Year || 503 Season || Fall Temp || 35℉ (℃) - 69℉ (℃) Weather || The iron grip of Summer has slowly faded into the gentler Fall embrace. The morning dew frosts over in the early morning hours and melts by the time the sun hits high in the sky. Many of the trees have traded their lush, vivid green for a more suitable array of red and orange hues. But don't blink, for Winter's cold embrace is fast upon Fall's heels.

"Are there lines she's crossing? Should she toe them or touch them with a pole and stay away wholly? But to avoid such a storm he offers, such a taste of life; to withhold herself from the chance to taste starlight, to love satin and silk and swallow pomegranate seeds not yet offered... She should be stronger." — Moira in Small as a wish in a well

He's not sure if he knows it yet. He probably does. Here it is, without further suspense:

there is a craving in his heart for something that is not violent.

(italicized, for good measure. Oh, how good it feels to have it writ!)

Against all logic, he has been fostering this weakness. The way it makes him feel reminds him of a lot of things, but mostly it reminds him of how hope tasted before it was replaced with ashes.

(that and salt water-- we'll never understand why feelings feel the way they do)

The truth (the secret truth?) is that it feels good to have a secret. Nothing can be taken if no one knows about it. The rest of the world can have their trinkets, and their loves, and normalcy... he'll take his secret, and grow it like a seed buried deep in his chest. It is different from his magic, which is more like something wild that has chosen him as its vessel-- that was more like a gift. This is... this is the first thing he's created from nothing in as long as he can remember. He aches for it, he scorns it, he cherishes it.

It brings him to the Night Court.

He stands outside the gates feeling a heavy weight on his shoulders, feeling, somehow, as though he straddles some great invisible line- as though everything may come to be defined as before and after this day.

He realizes how dramatic he's being, and it makes him laugh silently. To anyone else he simply looks amused, the corners of his eyes crinkling at some private joke. To hell with the pressure he puts on himself, with the anxiety of not knowing what the future holds. There's a new world to explore before him.

He stands there for a very long time in thought before catching the attention of a brilliant copper stallion with a tilt of his head. The man wields a weapon as his tail and Eik's immediate thought is that this is not someone he would ever voluntarily face in battle-- the odds would be hideously against him.

"Hello," he calls quietly, unassumingly. The man could just as well turn away and go off on his business and it would not matter much. Eik would find his way around on his own, but it never hurts to ask; "Which way is the library? And the markets?"

There are so many things and people he'd like to see, but he reminds himself that there is always time and limits himself to two for now. His heart lurches in a way that makes him feel giddy. He hates this sensation, and yet-- he does not want it to stop.